Concept
Pleasure
Overview
Pleasure is an experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious animals find pleasure enjoyable, positive or worthy of seeking. A great variety of activities may be experienced as pleasurable, such as eating, having sex, listening to music or playing games. Pleasure is part of various other mental states such as ecstasy, euphoria and flow. Happiness and well-being are closely related to pleasure but not identical with it. There is no general agreement as to whether pleasure should be understood as a sensation, a quality of experiences, an attitude to experiences or otherwise. Pleasure plays a central role in the family of philosophical theories known as hedonism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Pleasure is discussed.
1. Pleasure and Pain, simple Ideas. AMONGST the simple ideas which we receive both from sensation and reflection, PAIN and PLEASURE are two very considerable ones. For as in the body there is sensation barely in itself, or accompanied with pain or pleasure, so the thought or perception of the mind is simply so, or else accompanied also with pleasure or pain, delight or trouble, call it how you please. These, like…
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; opens on it
But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect; of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c…
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
To add feelings, mere transitory consequences, without first reducing those feelings to a common denominator by their relation to one objective standard, is an impossibility. Pleasure is a sort of sign or symbol of the object which satisfies, and we may carry on our judgment, if we will, in terms of the sign, without reference to the standard, but to argue as if the sign were the thing, as if the sum of pleasure…
John Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
We had there also the opportunity of entering more deeply into the nature of pleasure.[2] *Dangers of the Fore-pleasure.*--However the connection of fore-pleasure with the infantile life is strengthened by the pathogenic rôle which may devolve upon it. In the mechanism through which the fore-pleasure is expressed there exists an obvious danger to the attainment of the normal sexual aim. This occurs if it happens…
Sigmund Freud, Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Now, our mental powers are forms of sensibility, and therefore a preponderating amount of it makes us capable of that kind of pleasure which has to do with mind, so-called intellectual pleasure; and the more sensibility predominates, the greater the pleasure will be.[1]
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer
names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Pleasure
Related ideas
- Epicurus
- Eusebius
- Emotion
- Pyrrhonism
- Hedonism
- John Stuart Mill
- Happiness
- Aenesidemus
- Desire
- Philosophical skepticism
- Suffering
- Henry Sidgwick
- Praeparatio evangelica
- Well-being
- Intellectual
- Sense
- Cyrenaics
- Sigmund Freud
- Utilitarianism
- Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
- Intrinsic value (ethics)
- Epicureanism
- Nick Bostrom
- Value (ethics)
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Absurdism.